Nonetheless, let's look at deep causes. Are there any markers of something deep being "not normal"? Yes- declining life expectancy due to deaths of despair among less-educated whites, a huge proportion of the population. By "not normal" I mean that there are really no other recent effects like this in any major population worldwide, exce…
Nonetheless, let's look at deep causes. Are there any markers of something deep being "not normal"? Yes- declining life expectancy due to deaths of despair among less-educated whites, a huge proportion of the population. By "not normal" I mean that there are really no other recent effects like this in any major population worldwide, except in Russia after the fall of the USSR. A huge fraction of the population seems to be subjectively experiencing a collapse of their world of that type. It would be surprising if that did not result in political phenomena that were very "not normal".
The liberal sense that something is way off may turn out to capture what's important better than simple projection of the first 3 years Trump years onto a short-term consequences axis.
"I mean that there are really no other recent effects like this in any major population worldwide, except in Russia after the fall of the USSR."
That's because the same thing is happening in both place, albeit at different speeds: a collapsing empire's treasury is being raided by neoliberal oligarchs, while the rest of population suffers for it and yet does nothing, because they're too afraid of losing what little they still have (i.e. their lives) to go up against the might of the empire's internal security apparatuses.
Nonetheless, let's look at deep causes. Are there any markers of something deep being "not normal"? Yes- declining life expectancy due to deaths of despair among less-educated whites, a huge proportion of the population. By "not normal" I mean that there are really no other recent effects like this in any major population worldwide, except in Russia after the fall of the USSR. A huge fraction of the population seems to be subjectively experiencing a collapse of their world of that type. It would be surprising if that did not result in political phenomena that were very "not normal".
The liberal sense that something is way off may turn out to capture what's important better than simple projection of the first 3 years Trump years onto a short-term consequences axis.
"I mean that there are really no other recent effects like this in any major population worldwide, except in Russia after the fall of the USSR."
That's because the same thing is happening in both place, albeit at different speeds: a collapsing empire's treasury is being raided by neoliberal oligarchs, while the rest of population suffers for it and yet does nothing, because they're too afraid of losing what little they still have (i.e. their lives) to go up against the might of the empire's internal security apparatuses.